It’s devastating when a child becomes disabled due to medical malpractice or personal injury, and many families seek to recover from those whose negligence harmed their child. Lawsuits can take years, and take an emotional and psychological toll on the families involved. Should the family prevail, getting a verdict in their favor can be a godsend that allows them to recover from financial difficulties due to the child’s medical needs. However, even after a settlement or verdict, there is more to do.

Your child may still be qualified for public benefits.

A settlement or verdict may not always cover a disabled child’s needs, but with careful planning, any lack of funds can be covered by other sources, such as public benefits. If your child is unable to work, he or she may still qualify for some benefits, like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid, even if they receive money from a settlement or verdict.

Consider creating a Special Needs Trust.

Special Needs Trusts are specifically created to benefit a person with special needs and cover not only their medical expenses but their personal ones. Placing a settlement or verdict in a Special Needs Trust will preserve the child’s eligibility for public benefits like SSI and Medicaid, since the assets in a Special Needs Trust are not counted as belonging to the child.

Special Needs Trusts also shield the assets in the Trust from being misused since a trustee is named to ensure that the money is protected and used appropriately.

Winning a medical malpractice or personal injury lawsuit is a hard-fought and hard-won victory, and it can be eclipsed by the new task of figuring out how to handle the money received. Creating a Special Needs Trust can help you create long-lasting financial security for your child with disabilities. Virginia Special Needs Planning Attorney Sheri Abrams can draft such a Special Needs Trust and help you create a solid plan for the future. For help getting started, contact our office at (571) 328-5795 to schedule an appointment.

The jury that deliberated on the case found that the hospital, St. Charles Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, departed from accepted obstetrical practice in several important ways, ways that the jury found ultimately caused harm to the baby. These alterations from standard operating procedures resulted in a loss of oxygen to the young girl, Shannon Reilly.

Attorneys for the family now say that Shannon is unable to walk, speak, write or swallow without assistance from others. The girl required round-the-clock care for her serious injuries. The jury saw the severity of her injuries as justification for the massive award, one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in New York history.

Despite the good news for the family, it was a very long road to this point. The case actually heated up in 2009 when the family’s attorney convinced them to reject an $8 million settlement offer from the hospital that was attempting to avoid going to trial. The family agreed and ended up losing the case. The loss was seen as so bad that the hospital’s attorneys mocked the failure in the press, laughing at them for turning down $8 million and then getting shut out of court.

Though it was difficult, the family and their attorney persevered and in 2011 the New York Appellate Court reversed the lower court decision, ordering a new trial. The second case ended in a hung jury and required a third trial, which began last month. Despite the years of struggling the fight appears to have been worth it.

The Virginia Injury Attorney’s Perspective:

Most children who have cerebral palsy have had it since birth, often due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Sometimes this lack of oxygen is because of medical malpractice and delivery mistakes during labor or childbirth. In cases where medical malpractice has been linked to a child’s development of cerebral palsy, common causes include: the failure to properly detect or treat infections in the mother during pregnancy, the failure to properly monitor fetal heart rate before and during labor, the failure to plan for a cesarean section when a baby is too large to safely pass through the birth canal and negligence in using instruments like forceps in a delivery.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of a medical error or complication, you should consult with an experienced Virginia (VA) medical malpractice lawyer who has successfully handled similar med mal cases in the past. Our firm enjoys a reputation of experience and success while representing victims in medical malpractice cases against doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. We approach each case individually to provide the resources, knowledge and experience to achieve success on behalf of our clients.

Potentially Helpful Info:

If you or a member of your family has been harmed by a Virginia (VA) doctor’s misdiagnosis, mistake or negligence, you can begin to learn about your legal rights and options for seeking compensation by downloading this free report.

Have Questions? Check Out Our Firm’s FAQs.

If you or a loved one has been injured at the hands of a medical professional, chances are you are confused about your options and may not know where to turn for help. To learn more about medical malpractice cases, check out this online library of Virginia (VA) attorneys’ answers to frequently asked questions regarding medical malpractice lawsuits.

Here’s a post discussing the importance of medical records in malpractice lawsuits:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmSHuSdIAXw]

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

A Nevada medical malpractice case against UnitedHealth and a shoddy medical clinic that infected patients with Hepatitis C, culminated in a massive $500 million punitive damage award. To learn more, read the full story here…

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

The CDC has released new statistics that show a sharp increase in children being diagnosed with A.D.H.D. That diagnosis is typically treated with strong drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall. Many in the medical community are concerned that these medications are being overused. To learn more, read here. . .

New CDC Data Reveals One in Five High-School Age Boys Diagnosed with A.D.H.D.

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

The data was collected by combing through records for more than 35,000 surgeries that were conducted at a major hospital in the Dallas area. The results of the surgeries were then linked to hospital bills and the results surprised even the study’s authors. A typical surgery with a privately insured patient yields a profit of slightly less than $17,000. If a surgical complication were to occur, the profit margin would jump to $56,000. For Medicare patients, profits in routine surgeries average $1,900 and jump to $3,300 in the event of a complication.

The authors of the study first got the idea to explore the issue after puzzling over why some hospitals were so reluctant to implement even small changes that had been shown to lead to large reductions in medical errors. The authors wondered whether money might play a role in the decision-making process and were dismayed to find such a powerful connection between profits and patient harm.

The study concluded that the insurance payment system in the country is broken; that paying doctors for the number of procedures performed without taking into account the success rate of the operation is a mistake. The authors suggest that to begin incentivizing medical providers to lower complication rates, insurers should tie their payments to surgical success rates. The goal, according to the study’s authors, is to more effectively tie payment to medical value, ensuring that doctors and hospitals are not rewarded for harming a patient’s health.

The Virginia Injury Attorney’s Perspective:

Though most surgeons are highly skilled and work hard to do a good job each and every time, mistakes happen that can leave patients seriously injured or even dead. According to statistics from the Institute of Medicine, 98,000 patients die each year due to medical mistakes and costly surgical complications, a far higher figure than should be acceptable.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of a surgical error or complication, you should consult with an experienced Virginia (VA) medical malpractice lawyer for this type of medical malpractice lawsuit. Our firm enjoys a reputation of experience and success while representing victims in medical malpractice cases against doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. We approach each case individually to provide the resources, knowledge and experience to achieve success on behalf of our clients.

Potentially Helpful Info:

If you or a member of your family has been harmed by a Virginia (VA) doctor’s misdiagnosis, mistake or negligence, you can begin to learn about your legal rights and options for seeking compensation by downloading this free report.

Have Questions? Check Out Our Firm’s FAQs.

If you or a loved one has been injured at the hands of a medical professional, chances are you are confused about your options and may not know where to turn for help. To learn more about medical malpractice cases, check out this online library of Virginia (VA) attorneys’ answers to frequently asked questions regarding medical malpractice lawsuits.

Here’s a video explaining some of the common medical errors that can occur during surgery:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lqSn7bd2OU]

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

Our firm published an article discussing the misguided and irrational arguments calling for capping jury awards at $250,000. Jury awards are not the problem. They do not cause health care costs to increase. Find out why in this article…

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

Contact us at: Westlake Legal Group Your Northern Virginia Full Service Law Firm. Call (703) 406-7616 or click here for our website: https://westlakelegal.com/

We aim to lead in each practice and area of law we work in. Coming from in-depth understanding of the law and the industry, capitalizing on extensive experience, we provide hands-on advice that speaks the language of our client’s business and/or legal issue.